Palestinian guerrilla leader Habash buried in Jordan

( dpa ) - The founder of the Marxist Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), George Habash, was laid to rest Monday at the Christian cemetery in Sahab, 20 kilometres east of Amman.

The burial ceremony, which took place after a funeral procession that involved a religious service at the Greek Orthodox Church, was attended by dozens of his followers and friends, including representatives from almost all Palestinian factions.

Salim Zaanoun, speaker of the Palestine National Council (PNC), an equivalent of a Palestinian parliament-in-exile, attended as representative for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas' mainstream Fatah group was also represented by nine members of the Central Council. Habash's coffin was draped with the Palestinian national flag and carried to the grave by soldiers of the Jordan-based Palestine Liberation Army (PLA).

Also bidding farewell to Habash were Ahmad Teebi and Mohammad Barakeh, two members of the Israeli Knesset, and other representatives for the Palestinian community in Israel as well as Nayef Hawatmeh, Secretary General of the Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which broke away from the PFLP in early 1980's.

Prominent Jordanian politicians, including leaders of opposition parties and trade unions also took part in the funeral procession.

Two top PFLP officials, Maher al-Taher and Laila Khaled, delivered speeches during the burial ceremony pledging to toe Habash's line in resisting the Israeli occupation until the "liberation of the entirety of Palestine."

"There will be no reconciliation with the Zionist entity which usurped Palestine and currently targets the whole Palestinian people," said al-Taher, who ranks second in the PFLP's hierarchy after the group's Secretary General Ahmad Saadat, currently jailed by Israel.

He said that the PFLP "will continue the struggle which was started by the late leader" more than 50 years ago, including the re-cementing of the Palestinian national unity that was dealt a severe blow with Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in mid-June 2007.

"Even if the entire world recognized Israel, we will not dispense with Palestine," said Laila Khalid, who pioneered the hijack of Israeli and other airliners in 1969 and early 1970s as a method of drawing the attention of the world public opinion to the Palestinian cause.

Habash, also known by his nom de guerre "al-Hakim" graduated as a doctor from the American University of Beirut in 1951 and was a founding member of the Arab Nationalist Union a few months later.

He founded the PFLP in 1967, shortly after Israel defeated Arab armies in the Six Day War and occupied the remaining part of Palestine including East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

He held the post of the PFLP's Secretary General for 33 years until he stepped down in 2000 for health reasons.